Nancy Pearl and Sarah Strohmeyer

Several years ago I heard Nancy Pearl (Seattle librarian, author, public speaker,and much more!)speak at a Friends of the Library meeting at the Mukilteo, WA, library. I will never forget her recommendation: Subtract your age from 100 and that is how many pages of a book to read before giving yourself permission to stop reading that particular book. Since I'm one of those individuals who has a hard time putting a book aside because I think I "ought" to finish it, this has become a useful tool for me. I find myself even ignoring the "rule" on occasion and quitting before the recommended number of pages!

Nancy is a voracious reader and most of her books are recommendations of books she's read. The first one I was aware of was titled, "Book Lust." which I thought was extremely clever. If you want more information about Nancy Pearl and her career as well as her books, visit: http://www.nancypearl.com/biography.html

So....I am a fan of Sarah Strohmeyer's Bubbles Yablonsky character and there is a series of "Bubbles" books. As I've mentioned before, I like to read a series in order but, when I was at the library, I couldn't remember how far I'd actually gotten into the "Bubbles" series so I picked up Strohmeyer's "The Penny Pinchers Club" as it seemed to be a "stand-alone" book. I made it 95 pages into the large print edition before invoking Nancy's rule because the book just couldn't hold my interest. I'm surprised at how hard it was to let it go, though -- maybe because I do like the "Bubbles" series so well?

Although I found "The Penny Pinchers Club" kind of boring, I enjoy the Bubbles series because I like mysteries plus they're funny -- always a good combination for me!

pazt